


Relapse

by orphan_account



Category: Marianas Trench
Genre: Eating Disorders, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7595023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Matt confronts Josh about his strange behavior, he finds out something that he didn't quite expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Tell Me I Survive

Josh's hands shake. They shake when he grips the microphone on stage, they shake during interviews, when he talks to his bandmates, when he does Twitter Q&As with fans, and late at night when sleep escapes him. They shake as he shoves yet another salad down his throat, and they’re shaking harder than ever as he runs his black-nailed fingers along the faint outline of his ribcage in front of a small mirror in the dimly lit tour bus bathroom.

He sighs and picks up the tank top he’d haphazardly thrown onto the counter twenty minutes earlier, pulling it over his head. He looks in the mirror once more, feeling disgusted about how the fabric clings to him, showing every ounce of fat on his stomach. He makes a mental note to not be seen like this. On his way from the bathroom to the front room he stops at his bunk for a hoodie and his phone.

"He seems really on edge lately."

"Maybe it's just anxiety."

“I hope he’s okay.”

And Josh opens the door to put an end to the concerned statements said in hushed tones, acting like he hadn't been aware of it at all. 

He grabs a Coke Zero out of the fridge and sits with the band, raising a curious eyebrow. "What'cha guys talking about?" He asks in a higher pitch than normal.

"Oh nothing, just stuff about press tomorrow," Mike offers. Josh seems unable to wipe the knowing look off of his face, but he doesn't comment.

He picks up his calorie-free drink and pops the tab. His hands shake then, too. You'd think that having the liquid in his body would probably make him shake less, but unfortunately, it’s not always the case.

It’s only then that Josh notices that the rest of the band is eating pizza. “Sorry… I know you can’t eat this, avert your eyes,” Ian jokes. Josh laughs.

“It’s cool, dude.” Josh gets up and grabs a container of pre-washed strawberries out of the fridge. “Besides I can just eat these lovely things,” he says, opening up the container and grabbing a strawberry and dramatically taking a bite of it as to show how good they were.

“Sucks to be you,” Ian said.

“I know, right?” Josh says with a smile.

\---

Mike and Ian went to the back of the tour bus to play video games after dinner that night, leaving Josh and Matt alone together to watch TV out in the front room, which hadn’t left Josh feeling suspicious until a commercial came on and Matt took a deep breath and started speaking.

"We’ve noticed that you, um… that you seem to be having a hard time lately.”

“How so?” Josh asked, not breaking his gaze from the television.

“I’ve seen things that worry me.”

“Such as?”

“You avoid us a lot and spend a lot of time in your bunk when we're not at a venue. I don't want to stop you from sleeping or anything, man. It's just not like you. And you seem anxious lately," Matt said. When Josh still hadn’t responded, he pushed a little harder. "What's wrong?"

Josh took a minute to respond, biting his lip while he decided what to say, he shook his head slowly. "Nothing's wrong."

"Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Even you've said yourself that keeping secrets only makes them stronger."

"Using my own quotes against me?"

"I'm not trying to use it against you. I'm trying to get you to talk."

Silence took over the tiny space, Josh kept quiet and Matt began to think Josh wouldn’t speak. But Josh simply turned away, and when he finally found his voice again, the decibel was hardly above that of a whisper.

"You know how when we go out to eat at a restaurant I won't get anything, or I'll order a fucking salad or whatever and I always say I'll eat later?"

Matt followed suit with the quietness, "Yeah," he said dejectedly. He was afraid he knew what Josh would say before he even opened his mouth.

"Sometimes I do eat after... but most of the time... I don't."

It took a full minute for Matt to figure out what to say next. “Is this why you only ate a couple strawberries for dinner?”

“Something like that…”

"What started this?" Matt asked, trying to decipher whether or not Josh had just told him what he thought he did.

Josh pushed his hair out of his face. "The weight loss itself, I guess. I just... I finally felt somewhat okay about my body and then one day I weighed myself and realized I’d gained a few pounds. It scared me. I was scared that I was going to get fat again, so I started restricting..." Josh took a few shaky breaths and Matt feared that his friend would start crying. "I'm so fucking terrified of gaining weight."

With that, Matt realized it was exactly what he thought Josh had meant. He wanted to wrap his arms around Josh and tell him he'd be okay, but that hardly seemed like the right thing to do to comfort someone who felt shame about his own body. "Josh, you were never fat..."

"Really? I beg to differ. Even fans like to refer to my old body as 'pudgy.'" Josh completes it with air quotes and finally, with eye contact. His eyes are red-rimmed, and Matt's heart breaks a little more. Josh looks away again.

"They have no clue what they're talking about."

Even though Matt couldn't see it, Josh rolled his eyes. "Yeah. They do. You don't need to lie to me."

"I wasn't lying."

"Whatever. Now you know what's wrong with me..."

"How can I help?"

"You can't." Josh felt a pang of guilt in his chest, but brushed it off, turning to look at the younger man. "Actually, you can help me by not telling anyone." It came out as more of a question than a statement, and Josh looked more like a six-year-old who'd broken a dish and was scared that his mom would be mad than a thirty-year-old who was the frontman of a very successful band and playing in arenas.

"Are you going to try to get better?" Matt asked.

"I don't know."

"Do you want to?"

Josh had to think about it for a second before finally shaking his head. "No."

"I know you're an adult, and no one can make you do anything, but if you can't get any better then I might have to tell-"

"Don’t you dare!” Josh nearly yelled, leaving them both a bit shocked. Josh took a deep breath to calm himself down before he trusted himself to speak again. “Just give me time." 

Matt reluctantly agreed, feeling uncertain as to whether or not he was doing the right thing, but he wanted to believe Josh knew what he was doing and that he would be fine. After all, he’d always been fine before.

"Thank you," Josh whispered. Then he got up to go lay in his bunk, closing the curtain while he was at it.

Matt turned off the TV and sat in the quiet room until he eventually decided to go join Mike and Ian so he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts anymore.


	2. Signs

Matt plopped himself onto a seat alongside his other two bandmates. "Hey, how'd it go?" Mike asked, only half paying attention to Matt, as the other half of his attention was directed toward the virtual murder taking place on the television screen. 

Matt shook his head, though fully aware Mike was too engrossed in the game to see it. "Oh, it was... interesting."

"Good interesting or bad interesting?" Ian asked.

"I don't know yet. Can I join you guys?" Matt asked, leaning forward in his seat.

"Yeah, when we're done with this battle, grab a controller and join in."

Matt ran a hand through his hair; all his thoughts lead back to Josh and he couldn't get his mind off of it. The initial shock had his stomach in knots, and he wanted the other two men in the room to provide a distraction, but he knew no matter what, his concerns would remain in the back of his mind. The video game battle had ended, signaled by the fact that Ian and Mike were now staring at Matt expectantly. "So... where's Josh?" Mike asked, finally.

"Oh," Matt nodded in the direction of the door. "He's in his bunk right now. Hopefully, he's getting some sleep, but who knows?"

"Did you get much out of him?" Ian asked.

Matt looked down to the floor. "I really shouldn't talk about it." It felt like a lie coming out of his mouth; maybe he really should talk about it. He knew Josh wouldn't see it that way though, and against his better judgment, he'd already made a promise to his friend.

"Okay, I can respect that," Mike said, eyeing Matt suspiciously, but declining to question further.

"Now can we play?" Matt asked with a forced grin, waving a controller in the air.

Thoughts of Josh kept lingering on the guitarist's mind while playing the game; he couldn't keep them at bay. He couldn't help but think about the hints that had been dropped and the signs he had missed.

Maybe the first sign was the dieting. Sure, it all started for health reasons, and no one could fault him for that, but maybe someone should have pointed it out when he got just a little too strict with it. Maybe then it could have all ended before it began.

Maybe the second sign was when Josh chose to wear a shirt when playing shows. He claimed that it was because the weather was growing colder, but maybe someone should have pointed out that the cold didn't stop him from taking the stage shirtless just a year earlier.

It was the third sign that had people start to worry. The isolation. But still, no one said anything until something else seemed off.

The fourth sign was undeniable. The shaking made it plain to see that there was a problem, that Josh was physically unwell, mentally unwell, or both.

Matt couldn't help but mull over the fact that it had been there all along and he wasn't quite sure what to do with that knowledge besides feel guilty for not putting the pieces together sooner, but you know, hindsight is always 20/20. And he wasn't the only oblivious one.

But maybe if he'd put the pieces together before now, Josh wouldn't be in quite as deep; maybe he'd have wanted to get better rather than remain stuck in his sickness. It still would have been bad, of course, but maybe it wouldn't have been quite this bad.

\---

The lack of a scale on the tour bus was really the biggest factor in Josh's routine. First thing in the morning, he'd spend entirely too long in the bathroom. The tiny bathroom wasn't quite ideal for body checking, but it was all he had most of the time. Some days the band and crew would sleep in hotels, but those days were few and far between, so he had to settle for this. It was no big deal though, as he'd grown so accustomed to it over the past month or so that it had almost become second nature.

He sucked in, holding his hand flat against his stomach, watching as his ribs became more pronounced, only to almost disappear before his eyes when he let himself breathe again. Why this had become so important to him again, he wasn't quite sure. He felt sixteen again, lying and hiding and convinced that he was fatter than he truly was. In all fairness, it was hard to tell how fat he truly was, since mirrors have a tendency to lie.

All he really knew for sure was that regardless of what the scale would say when he got back from tour, the mirror told him that his body wasn't nearly as thin as it could be, which was a problem.

Josh sighed once more, staring blankly into the reflection of his own face, noting how the dark circles under his eyes had gotten so much more prominent since he'd last really looked at his face. His skin looked a shade whiter too, which he didn't imagine was possible, considering he was already pale and vampirish before. He shook his head and put his tank top on, and then his hoodie over top of it.

He pressed the home button on his phone, and upon seeing that it was only a little before ten, he felt relieved that he hadn't wasted the entire day sleeping. Or body checking.

He walked out of the bathroom, past the bunks, and into the front room where everyone was already getting on with their day. It smelled strongly of coffee and burnt toast.

"Hey Ramsay," Matt greeted. Josh smiled before remembering what had happened the night before, but when he did, a look of fear and shame quickly overtook it.

"Good morning," Josh rubbed his eyes and yawned as if he'd just rolled out of bed and had not been in the bathroom for at least ten to twenty minutes.

Matt was uncertain of how to act that day, should he pretend like nothing had happened or try to help Josh as much as he possibly could? He tossed the options around in his head before gently suggesting that Josh eat breakfast since they had an interview to go to.

Josh gave Matt an incredulous look and then rolled his eyes. "I just woke up dude, you know I can't stomach anything in the mornings." Matt tried to give Josh a subtle knowing look, but Josh simply feigned confusion. Whether he was trying to avoid having Mike and Ian catch on, or trying to pretend that the conversation they had last night hadn't happened at all, Matt wasn't sure.

"Suit yourself," Matt shrugged. It seemed mean, and he felt guilty for saying it. But he really wanted to say that Josh never had a problem with eating breakfast in the past, so in comparison to calling him out in front of people who didn't know, it was almost like he'd done a nice thing.

Josh looked at the schedule posted on the fridge, learning that he only had an hour to get ready, conveniently leaving very little time to eat at all, and he already knew no one would question him about it. It would be several hours before the others would get hungry and they would even get the chance to eat again. With any luck, it would be at the venue later rather than at a restaurant, which would be a much later time to eat, sure, but it would also give him much more control over what he could eat.

Though a restaurant was also not a terrible option, because there would conveniently be nothing he could eat, so spinach and hot sauce could suffice as a meal, as has happened so many times in the past. Under 25 calories easily, and no one would dare question it because Josh was an adult who could take care of himself.

Except what he told Matt could prove to be an issue.


End file.
